Men Who Read
Must I Release You?
This is not a finger-wag or a condemnation. This is not a call-out post or an invitation. This is an exploration. This is me asking myself the question: Can I be sure I played no real part in this?
I still don’t have the answer.
I've been a bad, bad girl
I've been careless with a delicate man
And it's a sad, sad world
When a girl will break a boy just because she can
“Criminal,” Fiona Apple
Sullen Girl—
When I was a kid, I never remember wanting to run away, not even as a joke. Everything was instead taken from me. How could I run away from the only things I had left in this world? My teenage years were spent in the same three rooms. I envied my friends who had lives, boyfriends, and experiences. I wanted to be more like the ones who made out in cars and held hands at the movies, who went to Prom and didn’t spend their Saturday nights alone in the dark watching bootleg copies of Spring Awakening (OBC).
My only real escape was living in the minds of men. That was my rebellion—dancing in the dark for those who saw my brokenness as a fantasy.
Jailbait. Schoolgirl. Youngster. Brat. Kid. Baby.
All they wanted was a pliable thing they could call slut and princess in the same sentence. All they wanted was a girl who would lie to her parents to keep our connections safe, and I gave it to them. I reveled in the momentary ellipses of their attention because it wasn’t as risky as letting someone good (and my age) really love me.
Except, it kind of was.
See, when you lose your dad to disease and addiction right at the edge of thirteen, it’s easy to develop unhealthy attachments to cooler, smarter, and older men. You’ll seek a mature kind of love in the places you’ll never actually find it. You’ll wait outside office doors and hang out in dressing rooms just to place yourself in their view. You’ll listen to all their favorite music and read their favorite books, just to prove yourself worthy of their praise and attention. You’ll overlook red flags and tell yourself it’ll all be worth it once you get to feel real love. Sure, it never measures up to the pure, unconditional love your dad gave you, but the single compliment you get once in a blue moon is enough to bring you back and begging for the next one.
For a long time, I thought this personality quirk made me special. “I must be (insert whatever positive, attractive adjective here),” because he took an interest in me. This must be what love is.
Then, I read Kate Elizabeth Russel’s book, My Dark Vanessa.
The first time I read it, I was nauseous. The pit in my gut grew three sizes each time I finished another chapter. The familiar feeling of dread I’d long pushed aside made itself known again.
The mind so easily forgets, but the body always remembers.
By the end of it, something deep from within me forced itself up and out of my throat. I started writing. I wanted to understand. I needed to know every interaction was something I could still hold up to the light and ponder without the fear of losing the fantasy of it—the romance.
See, I loved them. I knew it from the moment my eyes laid heavy upon them that my fate was sealed.
Slow Like Honey—
The crux of My Dark Vanessa lies in the main character’s grappling with her own denial of what happened to her. There is a particularly grueling passage towards the beginning of the book in which a thirty-two-year-old Vanessa talks to her former English teacher, Mr. Strane, on the phone late one night. She asks him to remind her of their long-ago affair—to recount how stunning, how irresistible, her teenage self was to him. She clings to the power she appeared to lord over him. She’s completely lost in the idea that she was once so beautiful that she could easily turn the head of a man more than twice her age. She could drag him to hell and back with a single gaze.
In almost all of the instances where Vanessa reflects on this part of her adolescence, she speaks to the notion that we are never again as attractive as we were when we were sixteen. Women everywhere know this feeling. The second puberty hits, something within us shifts. The world begins to see us as something other than–no longer precious, but valuable in some novel way. No longer adorable, but something worth adoring. No longer someone to watch, but something to take.
Suddenly, your body belongs to everyone else. Everyone is looking at your figure for reasons you don’t fully understand. Yet, you are still the one tasked with holding it. You are the one walking and running with it. You are the one stretching it. You are the one bathing it. You are the one feeding it.
Like a careful mother protecting her helpless child, you are the gatekeeper of your own flesh.
At that age, it’s intoxicating to believe in the power of your own sexuality. It’s a wild, unwieldy thing. Sex sits thick in the air. You think about it all the time. Every emotion is raw. Every touch is identified and cataloged. Attraction is fickle and changes abruptly with the seasons. You long for something concrete. You long to have the confidence women seem to find only in their late twenties.
So, when immature boys fumble the ball and older men say all the right things, it’s exhilarating to be thought of as something. It’s exciting to dwell in the space between girlhood and womanhood. Like melting ice cream on a hot, summer day, the cream drips down your chin and you are forever emboldened by the knowledge that yes, despite your insecurities, your fears, and your worries, men want you. Men crave you. Men would go crazy to touch you.
I remember that feeling distinctly.
“To be groomed is to be loved and handled like a precious, delicate thing”
― Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa
The First Taste—
I met him the summer after I turned sixteen. He was twenty-three.
We met under circumstances most people in their right mind would meet with raised eyebrows. (Case in point: No one in Southern Virginia is in their right mind.) I spent summers performing in large community theatre productions. For most of us, this was a net positive. In theory, we gained invaluable experience as actors, singers, and dancers under the careful mentorship of talented drama school twenty-somethings. We spent all of our time with them. We shared rehearsal halls, dressing rooms, and stage wings with them. Living in such close quarters can lead to life-long bonds. It can also lead to other, more nefarious things.
I must admit–I loved it. I have endlessly fond memories from those seven seasons. Those summers were my joyous escape from the endless barrage of trauma emanating from my family life. I wanted to think about anything other than my dead dad and my own intrusive thoughts.
That particular summer, I felt truly pretty. I’d spent fifteen years living in a perpetual ugly duckling phase–too loud, too emotional, too much. The year I turned sixteen was the year I found out what it meant to be known by the stares of men. I grew my honey blonde hair out long to my waist. I got my braces off. A boy I liked liked me back.
For the first time in my life, I felt strangely invincible.
He wasn’t really on my radar at first. I remember telling my friends he wasn’t all that attractive, with the exception of his undeniable musical talent. He ultimately made himself known when I came across him reading my favorite book from when I was eleven. I spoiled it by accident. He only took mock offense.
We began a funny little dance–I would flirt with him carelessly, toeing the line in ways I cannot presently imagine ever welcoming from a sixteen-year-old. He would pretend not to notice, but secretly encourage. By then, he already had me eating out of the palm of his hand. He gave me his phone number with the condition that I not tell my parents.
Looking back, I’m sure I was an easy get. The boy I actually liked left me for someone else, as teenage boys are wont to do. I was devastated and made it no secret. I spoke at length with the man about it, texting my broken-hearted sorrows to him like he was my therapist. He told me to forget the little boy who hurt me and find a real man. He was so kind to me. He told me how well I would do when I turned twenty–how nice guys would line up around the block for me.
He was the first of many who made me feel like I was someone adults wanted to know.
I told myself over and over that it was okay. He had a girlfriend, after all. She was gorgeous and his age. I was insanely jealous. But every so often, he would say things that seemed designed to weaken me.
“Abby, your butt is in my way…though, it is a very nice butt.”
"If you were two years older, I'd date you."
“You’re so talented. You should consider studying voice in college.”
Once, in the shadowy darkness of a narrow backstage entrance, he asked to compare hand sizes. I stupidly thought he was looking for an excuse to hold my hand. He stood so close to me. All I could smell was cologne, sawdust, and sweat. The unbridled mix of fear and elation his mere presence elicited from within me was unspeakable. It was embarrassing. Oh, the bright pink blush my cherub cheeks must have revealed…
I texted my friends about the exchange. Instead of raising warning bells, they told me to have sex with him. Like me, they were thrilled that a real, older man wanted me.
The fantasy grew exponentially. I could see everything live and in living color. I would follow in his footsteps. In two year’s time, I would find myself attending his college. I would study opera and vocal performance. I would become the sexy, talented twenty-something he wanted. I would wear four-inch heels and dark red lipstick every day. I would dress just provocatively enough to leave him guessing.
I was convinced of so many things. He wanted to touch me. He wanted to be with me. He would wait for me. He admitted his girlfriend was wearing thin on him. He was sure I would be the sort of girl to be there, loud, proud, and stunning, for him.
“I can’t wait for you to turn 18, so I can finally kiss you.”
Each new message brought me closer to the edge of him. Six months in, I drove seventy miles to see him. I was so bold then–texting him something ironic about how the opening act to his show was childish—ridiculous.
“You’re here?!”
“I am!”
“Really? Gah, that makes me happy. Wow, I’m so nervous now.”
“Me too 🙂 ”
Afterwards, he hugged me. The smell of beer was sharp on his breath. Sweat poured from his forehead and neck. He held my waist tightly in the picture. I was the youngest person there. I giggled to myself that night on the way home–entranced and giddy and impressed I possessed something sacred—something of my own.
I would lay in bed, look at the picture, and wonder about him–was he thinking of me? Did he say my name when he took himself into his own hands? I would bury my face in the covers. I couldn’t bear the thought of it. It was too much–too adult.
For months afterwards, he occasionally sent me things to remind me of his hold over me. I felt lost in how desperately sweet he was, always saying the thing I needed to hear the second I needed to hear it. No one got me but him.
The fantasy finally faded when, after several years of silence, he sent me photos I never asked to witness. He blocked me immediately, fear and uncertainty coloring his final messages.
I learned how to forget.
Then, I met others–older men who each offered some new thing to keep me starving. Beyond the good voice, good grades, and good girl, there were the men. Anytime before the age of twenty-two, you could find me scribbling in my little notebooks about the things he’d said to me that day. Professors. TAs. College Guys in grad school.
“You’re amazing, Abby.”
“You’re a rockstar.”
“You’re the best, kid.”
“I shouldn’t want you the way that I do.”
His approval meant so much. It was everything.
The Child Is Gone—
The mind so easily forgets, but the body always keeps score.
Years later, I was an adult. I was still a virgin. I was haunted. I was desperate. I was sad. I was trying.
Years later, he found me again. He cornered me. He was grown. He was married. He asked to speak with me plainly. He–he apologized for his past behavior. He told me he found God. He told me he wanted to be a better man for his wife and future children.
The funny thing is–I believed him. In a daze, I thanked him. I gave him the last thing he wanted from me. I forgave him.
I cried myself to sleep every night after that but still believed him. I cried for that sixteen-year-old girl and her idea of what love could be. I cried for my long-lost innocence and the alternative universe where he never even spoke to me, where that silly boy came back to me and took me to the movies. I cried for teenage dreams and the romantic notion that I could lose my virginity to someone who loved me. I cried because the world seemed committed to robbing me of any semblance of normalcy.
I learned the lessons early.
Naïveté breeds more than false hope. It makes you believe in things you’ll never believe in again, like good intentions and the trustworthiness of older men. I’ll never believe in them again. I’ll never put full trust in the idea that a man can love me without conditions. It’s who I am now, forever marked by the eyes of those who needed a simple scenery change–something to shake up their little lives.
I just want to know why it had to be me–why my innocence was so easy to hold in your outstretched hand, only to be crushed in your fist the moment you reached land.
Pale September—
In the aftermath, I buried everything–the joy, the anxiety, the fear, and the elation. I hid from the world. I made myself small and gave up any power I once held like a bird.
It was only when I moved to New York and found myself drifting–alone, directionless–that the memories returned to me. I turned twenty-five. I discovered Fiona Apple. Tidal was my therapy for most of 2023, when I was too depressed, paralyzed, and dimwitted to just pick up the phone and make an appointment. I rode the A Train up and down the island of Manhattan, crying to the sounds and genius of the first artist to truly capture this aspect of my fucked up, unprocessed psyche. My Dark Vanessa was, in equal measure, the first glimpse into what life could be after I admitted what happened to me.
None of them had to touch me to leave me shattered.
Still, I forgot just how much, how often, he touched me.
Am I a bad person if I admit, perhaps not so carefully, that I liked it? I liked being held in such regard. I liked the idea that my eyes, my words, and my mouth tempted such men. I liked that something I possessed made them want me.
It’s only now, so many years after the first incision, I return to the photos and see a child. Her eyes are bright blue. Her smile bursts from her face. She stands rather awkwardly—gangly. She has yet to find her place.
That girl there is no woman. She’s a child. No amount of emotional maturity can change that.
Propelled by Fiona Apple’s resilient rage and Kate Elizabeth Russell’s masterful work on reliving and processing trauma of the age-gap variety, I set to work on a small chapbook of poems for people like me: kids who just wanted to loved and accepted, only to find themselves caught in the glue trap of loving an older person.
These poems are deeply personal and exceedingly vulnerable. I don’t know if I will ever share them here or at all. Some part of me wants to, but I’m just not there yet.
There’s only one I feel certain about—
“Men Who Read”
I still like you, enough to admit that this is something I can’t ever engage with. Because to engage with it is to remind myself of every single moment I spent thinking about men who read— Men who write poetry, Men who enjoy photography; The artists, the ones who always drove me to the edge of my seat. They always had something to offer me, the right thing to say when I needed it. And what did I get after all was said, written, and done? A hardened gaze. A solid weight to hold the others up to after him. A piece, a composition, a song I hear every time another one begins. A broken watch, stuck at the exact time he touched me. A moment in time before he ever knew me, before anyone did. A bygone era. A little girl who loved to laugh, who smiled without forcing it. A girl who left the fighting to the adults and disappeared into a world of music, A place where nothing could be ruined by a harsh word or a wandering eye. A brief respite from the world before she was thrust into it like a storm, unwavering and full-force. All they wanted was to place something of theirs in my soul, something to remind me forever of their hold. Men who expected an equal, but got a girl. What would they think of the woman she became? Would they recognize their creation and want her all the same? Or would they see how hollow she turned out to be, and weep silently for yet another lost soul? The perverse side of me thinks he would want me. It would be okay now that I’m no longer naïve. But the thing is, I had one of them already, And like a culmination of every man before him, He appeared to me in the night sky as a singular constellation. He was good to me. He was perfect. He did everything right. Still, it wasn’t enough. Would it have ever been enough with you?
Abby this is so moving and real. It is (understandably) rare to see people admit how intoxicating the fresh power of sexuality is as a young girl, when you're too young to really understand it and know how to wield it.
And the Fiona Apple framing, girl i love u
This was truly searing and bravely honest. As a man in his early 60s but vividly remembering the awkwardness and vulnerability of adolescence and the 20s as a young guy (which for me, even persisted into my 30s), I see now how, for all that youth confers, it blocks - so much potential in our younger years gets diverted or thwarted outright because our validation is still so dependent on others. For all that we try to do with our lives affirmatively, we do so from a basis that is still only partially formed, and the structures of ourselves can't bear much of the load that comes, with its expectations and outright demands.
As that young guy, I was so awkward, so unformed - and once I finally began having relationships, finally thinking the awkwardness was departing only to recognize later that it was amplified, I did some stupid and even shameful things with women - things that still pain me today to see in that I always thought I was better than that, when I was just like any dozen of guys around me doing the same things and not giving a damn. So to read your piece, from your side as a girl and reflecting on it as the woman you are now, it brings home to me how, for all that we want from each other to be free of cruelties, we end up in cruelty one way or another - either as the perps or as the victims, and for some, occasionally both.
You are brave to have written this and I truly hope that your life, and your art, are going in the direction you want them to go - with your hand firm on the tiller, going into the future.